He’s real about his religion and not ashamed of it. In the first winter after I moved to Washington, Snowmageddon hit the area in the form of one blizzard before Christmas and one in early February. Reid called the upper chamber in for a Saturday session during the earlier storm, which meant Lieberman needed to tromp three miles through deep snow on the Sabbath to make it in for the vote. I was the weekend editor at The Hill at the time, and my reporter on duty asked if he could make the trip in alongside Lieberman. The senator declined, stating that he didn’t want to make a story out of an exercise of his Orthodox faith.

With Lieberman gone, God will get fewer hat tips on the Senate floor — the Man Upstairs was a frequent mention in his floor speeches. All the while, he kept many liberals quaking at the thought that he was trying to usher in a Religious Left. “As a people, we need to reaffirm our faith and renew the dedication of our nation and ourselves to God and God’s purposes,” Lieberman said on the campaign trail in 2000. “The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. I say there must be and can be a constitutional place for faith in our public life.” That drew a rebuke for the Jewish lawmaker from the Anti-Defamation League.

Lieberman wrapped up his faith nicely in his 2011 book, The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath. “The Sabbath is an old but beautiful idea that, in our frantically harried and meaning-starved culture, cries out to be rediscovered and enjoyed by people of all faiths,” he writes in the book, as a politician in a town where rest is a bad word. “The Sabbath was given as a gift from God to everyone.”

Can you even remember when he was Al Gore’s running mate? Democrats like to say Ronald Reagan wouldn’t cut it as a GOP nominee in today’s Republican Party. Would Lieberman have stood a snowball’s chance of being picked as Gore’s running mate today? The senator is an example not just of a shifting party, but of a man who grew by facing the challenges that would be thrown at him after that race, and sticking to his principles.

He’s a gentleman in a world of non-gents. To many Democrats who felt betrayed by Lieberman’s brave move that undercut their primary ouster, every word that came out of the senator’s mouth was heresy. Whenever I heard Lieberman was about to speak, I had to stop and listen. Regardless of party, he’s how one considers the gentleman senator to be: a man of conviction who had studied the issue at hand and had a wise, respectful argument to offer, even if the listener disagrees. He was not a backstabber and is a man of his word, yet still is branded as Satan by those who haven’t forgiven him for the defeat of Lamont.

Yes, they don’t make Dems like Lieberman anymore.

There weren’t many of Lieberman’s colleagues on the floor to hear his 20-minute farewell, prompting the same pundits who delighted in needling the senator since his 2006 feat to brand his parting as sad and insignificant. But Lieberman’s words weren’t so Senate-centric.

“Long before the United States came into being as a government of institutions and laws, it was a dream — a dream, an implausible and incredible dream, of a country not defined by its borders or its rulers or the ethnicity of its founders, but by a set of eternal and universal principles — that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are God’s endowment to each of us,” he said. “…I leave this chamber as full of faith in the dream called America, as when I stood here nearly a quarter of a century ago to take the oath of office for the first time.”

Not that he didn’t have some sage, vintage-Lieberman advice for the 100 senators in the 113th Congress.

“Do not underestimate the impact you could have by getting involved in matters of foreign policy and national security—whether by using your voice to stand in solidarity with those who are struggling for the American ideal of freedom in their own countries across the globe, or working to strengthen the foreign policy and national security institutions of our own country, or by rallying our citizens to embrace the role that we as a country must play on the world stage, as both our interests and our values demand,” Lieberman said.

“None of the challenges we face today, in a still dangerous world, is beyond our ability to meet.”

Bridget Johnson is a veteran journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
She is an NPR contributor and has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.

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1.
Andrew

Yawn, I am tiring of anyone who chose the labor of politician since Ronald Reagan. Let’s move on. Give me a cliff to jump from.

He reminisced about how he first stepped in the chamber as an intern nearly 50 years ago, in the summer of 1963 — “inspired, like so many of my generation, by President John F. Kennedy and his call to service.”

“And although I would never have admitted so publicly back then, because it was so presumptuous, I came away from that experience with the dream that I might someday, somehow, return to serve in this place,” Lieberman said.

Say what you will about little Joey, you’ve got to admit he’s a walking, talking, living, breathing argument in favor of short term limits. 50 years of feeding at the public trough is loathsome.

At any rate, here’s the problem with term limits. They end up giving power to the unenlected – staff, lobbyists, civil service, because the elected are trying too hard to catch up. This we have learned from our experience in the States.

Yup, the problem isn’t term limits, it’s the overreach of the Federal government. If the Feds (Congress) stuck to their Constitutionally limited role -AND- started cutting the govenment down to size -AND- quit delegating those powers they actually do have to the bureaucracy to execute without meaningful oversight then Congress wouldn’t need years to get oriented.

Thanks, Bridget, for reminding us of this great and good person — a man of dedication to his country, high honor, principles and morality, which, unfortunately, are rare qualities among our political leaders and representatives today.

At least Lieberman was a Democrat you could actually reason with and have an intelligent conversation with. When a political party is reduced to electing people like Al Franken, there isn’t a lower level of professionalism it can sink down to. Franken was, is, and always will be a disgrace and it’s only fitting that the Democrats elected him. Although Lieberman is a Democrat, at least you could cut a deal with him. Now Congress is so polarized, nothing short of a civil war will change the way those people behave.

Thank you for that beautiful article. (The ADL is becoming more and more irrelevant.) Sen. Lieberman attended my wife’s synagogue in Washington (Jack Lew is in my sister’s.)

I think he was a good example in the Senate, but he partly got away with it because he had not much of a religious education. That’s why he could get asked about things like Homosexual Rights and give an answer that is clearly false in Judaism. He was actually defended for this by the Jewish Press, as they stated he had no choice. But when he ran for VP it was embarrasing. He said he “knew how the game was played” and basically put his priniples in a blind trust (to steal from Trudeau) unti lafter the election. I understand what he was doing, and why, but when I saw him standing next to murderous anti-semite Al Sharpton and shake hands with the genocidal head of NARAL – well, I’ll just say that did not sanctify God’s name. But aside from that interragnum, I think he was great.

We both know that the orthodox community is split between “black hat” and “modern”, and that many of those in the first group appear (to this set of shomer Shabbath eyes) to have lost all tolerance for others of the people of Israel. I suggest to you that Lieberman occupied a role familiar to the 19thC world and earlier in his relationships outside the community, that of “court Jew” or the public face of Jews, to use a phrase from old Europe. As such, your comment “but when I saw him standing next to murderous anti-semite Al Sharpton and shake hands with the genocidal head of NARAL – well, I’ll just say that did not sanctify God’s name..” is way out of line. You have forgotten the difference between the private and the public role.

This is not the place to debate this with you in more detail. But I am sure that if you consult a suitable eminent authority you can find textual precedents for what I am talking about.

If wanted to lower myself to your level, I would point out to you that Zyklon B does not distinguish between those who pray with “kavannah” (spiritual intensity), those who merely recite, and those who do not pray at all.

Good for Joe. If more Democrats in the House and Senate were cut from his cloth, we might have a budget today and Obama would not have a rubber stamp. He’s one of the last who has respect for those who don’t agree with him.

“I leave this chamber as full of faith in the dream called America, as when I stood here nearly a quarter of a century ago to take the oath of office for the first time.”

As Senator, Mr. Lieberman lived a life of privilege. Doors opened for him, powerful people sought his ear. He will have one of the best retirement packages known on earth. I ask, after a quarter of a century, what did he do for America? How does his contribution, status, and income compare to others who contributed? Did he keep us out of war? Did he help win our wars? Is our economy stronger for his policies? What did he do to keep our governmental spending in balance with its income? The Senate has not passed a budget in three years, what role did he play in this debacle? Do people share his judgment,” full of faith in the dream called America”. Is it as vibrant as when he first took the oath? For an average American, their wealth has not risen one dollar since that day. Almost none did as well as he did, and he did it on their backs.

He leaves a chamber filled with skilled talkers. A chamber which has less turn over than the Russian Duma. But what are their accomplishments?

I do not know the man, do not judge him, but I have little regard for the organization which paid him for decades. They, both parties, fail our nation. They are, for a generation, gutless wonders.

There are no reasons to miss Joe Lieberman & I hail from CT. I admired him before 2000. He voted with conviction & I respected him for that even though I disagreed with many of his political beliefs. When he ran with Gore I thought maybe he just might add some common sense to the platform’s defense policy which he was noted for. Instead he wimped out. He’s just a common political hack who should have left a long time ago.

That said, the dingbats in CT voted for another useless & dim-witted(Chris Murphyreally is not very bright, for God sakes he is a public school teacher——- & it has nothing to do with him being a democrat although there is a high positive correlation to it.), way far-left Democrat to take Lieberman’s place.———-I got to get out of here!!

Just because Lieberman was not a horse’s a**, like so many other Washington Democrats, doesn’t mean we should admire him. He could’ve killed Obamacare in his committee–but, of course, he didn’t. He has supported and helped every major Democrat tyrant for the last 50 years. Just because he’s a nice guy–so what? So is Joe Biden.

And, more’s the pity, his successor is Chris Murphy, one of Pelosi’s automatons from the House. Murphy is an eel who’ll toe the party line from now until he retires in 50 years. He’s the youngest member of the Senate at 39. Connecticut’s given us Blumenthal and now Murphy. Hacks both. God help us all.

Joe’s lynching by the D party gives proof to the fact they are allergic to morality, truth and doing the right thing- and they proved themselves haters of G-d and Israel at their convention- His public flogging, a warning to those who would dare try to be righteous- I see here so many who vilify this man and they sound so similar to the Huffpot and Kos crowd- What’s a USA Jew to do? from the left and from the right- there is no place to stand for Jew that will please either side- I found I could no longer stand with the D party after 9-11 and I am not proud to stand on this side when I read these comments- and it’s not just this article’s comments- the jewhate (oh yeah we must call it the PC approved anti Israel now) is thick in many conserv & GOP especially libertarian circles.
Every day I see the growing popularity of the oldest of old slanders and libels, and the disappearance of the former shame that would come with airing such views. As a Jew I am daily blamed by GOP’ers for 0bama being voted in.
I thanks the author for this positive spin on Lieberman, praise him for the things he did do right- He paid the price for following his conscience. many Jew like me pay too- our family, our friends our jobs are all extreme left liberals- and yet we have no home, no welcome, no place over here on the right either. I suppose it is good there is an ISRAEL- as push can turn to shoving (into ovens) even here in good old USA.